


just snap your fingers and i'm walking

by wvlfqveen



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Alternate Universe - D.E.B.S. Fusion, Discussions of Homophobia, Enemies to Lovers, F/F, Internalized Homophobia, Movie Canon Divergence, POV Alternating, Slow Burn, Spies & Secret Agents, Unresolved Emotional Tension, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-21
Updated: 2019-12-22
Packaged: 2020-01-23 11:23:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 11,706
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18548770
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wvlfqveen/pseuds/wvlfqveen
Summary: Cheryl Blossom, top of her class, the perfect D.E.B.S., international intelligence community poster child, is ready to graduate and move on with her life.Toni Topaz, criminal mastermind, notorious social recluse and ruthless head of the Serpents, is everything she's supposed to be working against.Key word: supposed to.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> well. hello. 
> 
> i havent posted ANYTHING in like, a year, because *gestures vaguely* life, but last night i watched the movie D.E.B.S. for the first time ever and i couldnt get an AU like that out of my head for these two so....here i am. doing this. i guess
> 
> this first chapter is almost pulled verbatim from the script bc i wanted to establish the setting. it wont always be like this i promise. pov alternating because toni is coming in chapter 2! 
> 
> please let me know what you think in the comments and leave kudos if you want!! xx
> 
> P.S.: i know toni is bisexual but for the sake of the AU and the character shes representing, she's a lesbian in this! sorry to all the bisexual toni fans. love u all
> 
> EDIT: just found out there's another cheryl/toni debs au out there......OUR MINDS! however, i wont be reading it to avoid copying/judging my writing too harshly lol so i hope i do it justice in my own way! thanks for reading and giving my writing a chance xx

_There is a secret test_ _hidden within the SAT._ _This test does not measure_ _a student's aptitude at reading, writing_ _and arithmetic.It measures_ _a student's innate ability to lie, cheat, fight and kill._

 _Those who score well are recruited_ _into a secret paramilitary academy._ _Some call them seductresses._

_Some call them spies._

_Fools call them innocent._

_They call themselves D.E.B.S._

* * *

“Good morning, D.E.B.S.”

Cheryl’s first reaction is her eyes snapping open, pulled right from sleep.

“Attention, D.E.B.S.!”

Her second reaction is a groan.

“Attention! Emergency alert! That means report right now! Right this second!”

She gets ready quickly and efficiently, her body used to the routine but her mind still half asleep. She can hear Betty through her bedroom wall, tearing her room apart. Probably searching for her gun again.

“You have no time to sleep, ladies! Go, go, go! And I mean now, ladies!”

“God,” she mutters. “We get it, Weatherbee.”

“Ronnie,” Josie says across the hallway, trying to get Veronica up. She’s always the last one up, courtesy of her wild nights and lack of care for the Academy’s rules. “Come on, Weatherbee is freaking out.”

“The world might be destroyed while you nap!”

Cheryl can’t hear Veronica’s response but Josie sighs. “Five minutes. And no boys allowed upstairs.”

Ah, there it is. The reason Veronica can’t get up. Cheryl smirks and fixes her lipstick.

Weatherbee pauses to draw breath so Cheryl can now hear Veronica as she kicks out her conquest.

“Let's go! I want everybody up!”

“Betty, five minutes.”

“Have you seen my gun?”

“Move it, move it! Everybody in the house!”

Josie ignores Betty to go answer a call. Cheryl checks her gun.

Mornings in the D.E.B.S. dorms aren’t always this chaotic. It’s rare that Weatherbee wakes them up like this, which means there is a new mission. Cheryl cannot really master the excitement. She’s so close to graduation -she just wants to be done.

Josie’s voice breaks through her musing. “Cheryl.”

She looks up. Josie’s holding her own phone, a disapproving frown twisting her features. “It’s for you.”

She accepts the phone. “Hello-”

“Cheryl-,” Reggie, her ex, starts.

“No, no,” Cheryl bites. “I’m not talking about this anymore, Reggie.”

“Let's go! Let's go, let's go! Move it, move it, move it! I don't have all day, D.E.B.S. I do not have all day!”

“Cheryl, come on.”

“Ten!”

“Reggie, seriously, it’s not a good time.”  Now or ever.

“Nine!”

“When? When is it gonna be a good time?”

“Stop calling.” She hangs up on him and pockets the phone.

“Cheryl!,” Josie calls from downstairs.

“Five. Four. Three.”

“I’m coming!”

A call comes through her watch. She accepts it with a sigh.

“After all we’ve been through?”

She scoffs. "Bye, Reggie.”

“Two, one!”

She takes the stairs down two at a time and ignores all incoming calls. Josie accepts her phone back without comment, but pats her arm in commiseration.

* * *

Cheryl tells them about Reggie on their way to meet Weatherbee, shouting over the wind.

“I broke up with Reggie.”

“What?,” Betty yells, sounding surprised. “Why?”

Cheryl’s mouth twists. How to even begin explaining? She and Reggie were together for more than half a year and she feels….nothing. She just broke up with him and she feels nothing.

“He was just so...boring,” she sums up, examining her nails. She keeps them short out of necessity but they’re bright and flawlessly red, like blood.

“He was an ass,” Josie says in agreement.

“I didn’t mind him,” Betty argues. “He was sweet….occasionally.”

They’re almost at their meeting place, and the rushing wind pulls the next words out of her mouth without her permission. “I’m just... not in love.”

“What?”, Betty asks. She hadn’t heard.

Cheryl sighs and rolls her eyes. Josie parks the car.

“Never mind,” she says. “Let’s go.”

Nobody questions her, but Veronica meets her eyes in the mirror, red mouth pursed over a cigarette. Cheryl gets out without a backwards glance.

*

When they enter the diner, Mr. Weatherbee is already there waiting for them, severe as always. They all greet him and order before he starts speaking.

“We have a special guest with us this morning,” he says, and they exchange questioning glances while he sips his coffee.

“Who?,” Josie questions, always wary.

“Mrs. McCoy.”

Cheryl raises her eyebrows. Josie turns a peculiar shade of puce at her mother’s name.

“Mrs. McCoy?,” Betty asks, awed.

“Mrs. McCoy,” Weatherbee confirms.

“She never comes down here,” Cheryl muses out loud. She’s an elusive figure, seeing as she’s busy being the head of the Academy and the face of all D.E.B.S. in the international intelligence community. Things must be serious.

“Ladies,” Mrs. McCoy greets, hologram flickering to life. She spares nothing more than a glance for her own daughter.

“Mrs. McCoy,” Betty says, hero-worship making her eyes shine earnestly, “I just want to say what a pleasure it is to meet-”

Mrs. McCoy raises a well-manicured hand. “No time for pleasantries. A matter of urgency has come to my attention.”

She pauses here and meets every girl’s eyes, to make sure they can feel the gravity of the situation. Josie’s colour still has not quite recovered.

Apparently satisfied with their reactions, she continues. “Toni Topaz is back in the States.”

“Oh, my God,” Betty whispers.

Cheryl sits up with ill-concealed interest.

Toni Topaz is a renowned criminal mastermind, apparently very young, and also the subject of her senior thesis. Most information about her is speculation. Research has been slow and frustrating.

Even Josie looks shocked. Her mother remains stoic.

“I expect to be kept in the loop on this one,” she says, and disappears.

Veronica seems perturbed. “Who’s Toni Topaz?

“Toni Topaz,” Weatherbee starts, pulling up a holo-screen. Grainy surveillance pictures of a young woman and several leather-clad men of various ages and races, crime scenes, stolen artifacts and other scenes of Topaz's life flash before their eyes. “She’s the last surviving member of the Southside Serpent crime syndicate. They did battle with the Ghoulies,” mugshots of several gang members pop up, each more wild-looking than the other “in a vicious blood feud that lasted a decade." He brings up a photo of FP Jones, leader of the Serpents. “After his death, she inherited everything: illegal arms-running, smuggling, gambling and her specialty, theft. She's protected by a loyal band of mercenaries, led by this man,” a photo of a young, sleep deprived-looking man pops up, pale and dark-haired, with dark circles under his eyes, and a ridiculous crown-shaped had on his head. “Jughead Jones,” Weatherbee introduces. “Son of FP Jones, he refused to inherit his father’s business way before his father’s death.”

“Why?,” Betty questions.

Weatherbee waves a dismissing hand. “Irrelevant. It is believed Toni Topaz was behind the three attempts to sink Australia.”

“Too bad she failed,” Veronica mutters. Cheryl hides a smile behind her hand.

“Then she went underground,” Weatherbee continues, “and hasn’t been heard from since.”

“Yikes,” Veronica says, dry as sand.

“That’s not even the bad part,” Josie says.

“What is?,” Betty asks.

“Nobody has fought her and lived to tell the tale,” Josie explains.

A tense silence descends upon the table. The waitress with their orders breaks it, setting their food and drinks down with a perfect customer service smile and flouncing away.

“So,” Cheryl begins, “why do you think she’s back in town?”

“Our intel suggests she’s in town to meet this woman.” A photo of a blonde woman in her thirties pops up, clad in all black and armed to the teeth. “Penny Peabody. Assassin. Used to work for various paramilitary groups, now she’s mostly freelance. Had a brief stint with the Ghoulies but that didn’t last long. They’re scheduled to meet tonight, at 2000 hours.”

“I smell a stake-out,” Veronica sing-songs.

“Try to find out what Topaz is up to. Strictly surveillance,” Weatherbee adds pointedly, eyeing them all. “Do not try to apprehend her yourselves. Josie, you’re in charge. Cheryl, you’re second. And D.E.B.S,” his eyes soften slightly, something akin to concern shining through “be careful.”

He gets up and exits with a brief, grave nod, leaving them behind with breakfast food that’s going rapidly cold.

They all look at each other, but it is Veronica who voices what they’re all thinking.

“What does a reclusive criminal mastermind want with a trained, ex-Ghoulie assassin?”

Good question. They'll find out at 2000 hours, apparently.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Toni Topaz does not do blind dates.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i dont got SHIT to say about how late i am in delivering this. sorry. *gestures vaguely* life. enjoy xx

Toni is just messing around on the internet, minding her own business, the day Jughead decides to mess with her personal life again. 

He presses down a few keys on her laptop, making her jump -she had been listening to music and ignoring his presence at her door for the past five minutes- and brings up the picture of a blonde woman with piercing eyes and enough ammo on her person to cause a series of heart attacks in police departments everywhere. 

“Your scheduled meet at 8,” he informs her, pointing to the screen like a proud father. Toni glances at the photo.

“Where’d you find her?”

“Sweet Pea tipped us. Said she’s available, just flew in from her last job in Europe. Single, ready to mingle, etc.”

He delivers the last line completely deadpan. 

“Assassin?”

“I know how you like ‘em.”

“Where’s the meeting?”

“At that new French restaurant downtown. Trendy, discrete. Don’t ask me to pronounce the name.”

Toni smirks. She knows the place and its name. “Wasn’t gonna.” She drops the smile. “Cancel it.”

Jughead scowls. “Why?”

“I don’t do blind dates,” she reminds him, and pushes her chair away from her desk. He stops her with his hands on the armrests. If he were anyone else, she would have already broken his forearms in half. 

“It’s not a blind date if you know what she looks like,” he argues, gesturing back to the picture. 

Toni grimaces. “She’s kinda old.”

“You’re 22. She’s barely thirty.”

“She’s still old.”

“Just give her a chance! It’s been two years, Toni.”

“Tell her I’m sick! I came down with something!,” Toni insists, trying to push away from her friend. He doesn’t relent. 

“You need to put yourself out there,” he says, ignoring her last comment.

“I am out there,” she argues. “I went out with that drummer, what was her name-”

“Melody. And you didn’t go out with her, we all went as a group and you bailed with “food poisoning”,” he lets go of her chair to air quote and she wheels herself away from him and his stubborn hands.  

“Yeah, well, we didn’t click. And she kept staring at that girl with the guitar that was performing all night so, I did her a favor.”

“They did hook up later,” Jughead allows, “but that’s not the point. You keep bailing out of love, Topaz!” He points a stern finger at her. “I know what you're trying to do. You're trying to drown yourself in your little schemes to make capitalists’ lives hard and destroy Australia-”

“It’s a hellscape of a continent,” she grumbles.

“But you need to get over it,” he continues, as if she hadn’t spoken. “You were dumped.”

“I wasn’t dumped.” She was.

''Oh you were dumped. You were dumped hard. And it hurt you.”

“It didn’t hurt.” It really did.

“And you took time off and fucked off all the way to Antarctica to chill with the penguins or whatever-”

“I fucked off to Iceland, Jughead, good God. Hanging out with Fangs has really taken a toll on you.”

“But now,” Jughead continues, slightly louder, pulling her back to the desk. “It’s time to get back in the game. You have a date tonight with a-,” he gestures to the woman in the photo, struggling to find a descriptive word.

“It’s okay, Jughead, you can do this. Push through your asexuality for a second.” 

He rolls his eyes at her. “You’ve got a date tonight,” he reiterates, “with a beautiful freelance assassin and you,” he gives her a stern look “are going to show up.”

She scowls. “Fine.”

“Fine.”

“But if we kill each other before I get laid, I’m blaming you.”

He throws his hands up and leaves without addressing that.

 

* * *

Toni shifts nervously in her seat and adjusts her dress. It’s short, just on the line separating “appropriate for an expensive restaurant” from “appropriate for maybe hooking up in a club bathroom”, and a purple so dark it’s nearly black. Black, high-heeled ankle boots and her silver snake jewelry complete the look along with her hair- newly highlighted pink for the occasion- that curls down over her shoulders. She looks good. She knows she looks good.

But she absolutely does not want to be here. 

Neither does her date, apparently. Granted, Toni was ten minutes early so the wait seems longer than it is, but her date, Penny or whatever, is fifteen minutes late. Toni does not appreciate being stood up.

It’s Friday evening, so the restaurant is reasonably crowded, mostly by couples, and a few small groups. Another person, sitting at the table close to the window seems to have been stood up, too, if their annoyed frown is any indication. Toni stares at them unabashedly. They’re absolutely beautiful, around Toni’s age, with pale, flawless skin, and long red hair curled and swept over their shoulder. Their dress, fire-engine red, leaves their shoulders bare and is tight enough for Toni to swallow when they shift and cross a long, perfect leg over the other. As she watches, they look at their gold watch and sigh, beginning to tap their nails -red, too- on the tabletop. 

She looks away before she’s caught, and because she’s starting to feel like a creep. It’s been a while since she has felt like that- struck over the head- because of someone’s appearance. 

“Hey!”

She jumps in her seat and looks up. Penny Peabody stares down at her, piercing eyes more disturbing in real life than they were in her photos.

“You’re Topaz, right?”

“Uh, yeah,” Toni says, and watches with trepidation as Penny sits down. She’s not an ugly woman -not at all- but badass assassin or not she really doubts that this will work out, and the date has barely begun.

“Sorry I’m late,” Penny offers as she adjusts in her seat and crosses her legs. Her heels are even more vicious-looking than Toni’s but her dress is surprisingly classy, dark blue and stopping just below her knee. “Had to take care of something.”

Toni doesn’t ask for details. “That’s alright.” Their server comes before she can think of something to start off a conversation, and she takes the time Penny spends grilling him on their alcohol to look over at the red-haired person again. A tall, dark-haired person has joined them, broad and obviously muscular even in their dark suit. Their short black hair is slicked back, and that’s all Toni has time to observe before their server turns to her. 

“What would you like to drink, Miss?”

“I’ll have a martini.” She’d prefer beer, or a ridiculous amount of tequila shots to get her through this, but she thinks she should probably be classy. She kinda likes this restaurant. She’d like to come back.

The server nods. “Let me know when you’re ready to order.”

She nods with a polite smile and they take their leave. She turns to face Penny again, and jolts when she makes eye contact with the red-haired beauty behind her. 

They smirk at her and look back at their date, who’s talking, oblivious to what has just occured. Toni can’t see how that’s possible. They locked eyes for less than five seconds and she feels shaken.

“So,” Penny starts, just as oblivious, “tell me something I can’t find out about you through the internet and the news,” she smirks in a way that’s probably attractive to other people. “Who’s Toni Topaz?”

She laughs. She hopes it comes across soft and not as nervous as it is. “Honestly there’s not much I can tell you that isn’t already there, but,” she gestures to Penny, smiling rigidly “how does that work?”

Penny looks at her like she’s a buffoon, which, okay fair enough. “Mostly freelance. People pay, people die, I get to vacation in Cuba. Everyone’s happy.”

“Except the dead guy,” Toni points out. 

Penny smiles. It’s not very pleasant. “Usually. It’s a job, you know. I do it because I have to. My dream,” she adopts a dreamy-eyed expression here which looks wholly unnatural on her face “is to be an attorney.”

“Oh,” Toni says, surprised “that’s a bit…”

Penny smirks. “Not evil?”

She looks away, embarrassed. “I was going to say tame.”

Her date laughs, a short, derisive bark. “Nothing about law is tame, baby. You should know, you’ve been on the other side of it for years.”

“So have you,” Toni points out. “Can you cross over so easily?”

Penny’s face darkens. “Cops do it all the time while pretending they don’t, don’t they?”

Their server chooses that moment to come back, bless their soul.

“Are you ladies ready to order?”

She turns to them with a grateful smile and, likely, a slightly unhinged look in her eyes. Jughead is so dead for forcing her to go through this.

* * *

The fifth time Reggie attempts to take her hand, Cheryl grinds her very, very sharp heel right into his instep under the table. He swears under his breath and flinches back as subtly as possible.

“We are on a job,” she reminds him, hissing. “Get your thick head out of your ass for a minute and focus!”

“We need to talk,” Reggie argues with a smile that looks frozen on his face. To the rest of the restaurant, they look like a sweet couple on a date. It’s a good thing they’re both great at their jobs.

“No, we don’t,” she returns, casting a subtle glance over at Topaz’s table. She’s deep in conversation with Penny Peabody, the pink highlights in her hair glowing in the candlelight. She’s….prettier than Cheryl ever imagined she would be in reality. She looks back at Reggie. “We dated, we broke up. End of story.”

“But why? I deserve an explanation,” Reggie demands. She rolls her eyes.

“The reason is…,” she sighs and makes a conscious effort to soften her tone. She’s not a monster. “I’m not in love with you, Reggie. I want something more than what you can give me. You weren’t a bad boyfriend, but my expectations exceed your abilities and your character. It’s not you, or me,” she adds as Reggie’s face twists “it’s both of us together that’s a problem.” 

“Don’t sugarcoat it,” he mutters, looking away from her.

“You know I never do,” she replies. “Now concentrate and listen, or the bug we planted under their table will be rendered useless.”

“Fine,” he relents. “Whatever," he mutters sulkily.

She ignores him and tunes in to Toni and Penny’s conversation again. Weatherbee will have her hide for wasting time and getting distracted by Reggie but it’s not exactly her fault. 

Then she sighs. “Penny is still talking about her dream of becoming an attorney.”

Reggie snorts, amusement in his eyes again. “Can you imagine being represented by her?”

“In hell, maybe,” Cheryl agrees, smirking. She glances to the side and has to stop herself from jumping when she meets Toni’s eyes. 

Toni does not look away, and as Cheryl watches, she raises her balled-up fist, showing something to Cheryl. Even from this distance, and without tuning in to their table, Cheryl knows what it is. Her blood runs cold.

“Reggie, we’ve been made,” she hisses out of the corner of her mouth and then everything goes to shit.

She flips their table over as the shooting starts and ducks behind it, throwing off her heels. She’s not going to be dodging bullets while teetering around like a hen. “Why the hell is the CIA, here?," she questions, looking at the uniforms shooting around and barking orders for evacuation over the noise.

“Did you think it was just us?,” Reggie questions, firing a bullet into the crowd before taking cover again. “Toni Topaz is the most-wanted criminal internationally right now.”

Cheryl grits her teeth. She just wants to graduate and blast off to art school, dammit. 

She chances a look over the table, just in time to see Topaz slamming her way into the kitchen. 

“I’m going after her,” she informs Reggie, and speeds off without waiting. 

"Cheryl!,” a familiar voice calls out as she ducks to avoid Peabody’s bullets, and she comes face to face with Josie. “Topaz just went into the kitchen.”

“I know! I’m going after her.”

Josie nods. “I’ll be with you as soon as I can. Go!”

Cheryl runs off again, throwing herself through the kitchen door. The kitchen staff are all cowering at the very back, quite alarmed. The head cook points Cheryl to another door silently, and she thanks him with a nod. 

The door reveals stairs that lead down to the basement, probably storage. From her look at the restaurant blueprints earlier, she knows there’s an exit on the other end, so she speeds up her steps. Topaz is _not_ allowed to get away from her. 

Getting down into the basement is almost anticlimactic, towering rows of cardboard boxes meeting Cheryl’s eyes in every direction. She runs, mind half on her mental picture of the blueprints, half on her thesis on the criminal mastermind she’s currently chasing. She really hopes she can be the one to question her when they take her in.

Her mind is so preoccupied, actually, that she runs straight into a solid body and she reacts instinctively, whipping her gun around and clicking the safety on in one smooth move. 

“Oh, shit,” is the first thing Toni Topaz says to her, brown eyes wide with surprise, even with her gun pointing straight at Cheryl.

“Toni Topaz,” Cheryl snarls.

“You’re a D.E.B,” Toni replies, eyes travelling down her body.

“You have the right to remain silent,” Cheryl begins.

Topaz scoffs. “You're reading me my rights?”

“Anything you say can and will be used against you.”

“Right,” Topaz says with a derisive snort. “Look, I am really not up for dying or going to jail today.”

Cheryl raises her eyebrows and does not lower her gun. Her earpiece crackles.

“So why don't you put your gun down, and we’ll talk it out.”

“Put yours down,” Cheryl retorts. As if, she’d be that stupid!

 Toni does not make a move. She scowls. 

“Look, it’s not like I’m in the wrong here. I was minding my own business on a blind date-”

 “Oh, you call that disaster upstairs a blind date?” Cheryl had not seen a more tense person in her life, and she works with Weatherbee.

“Hey, who are you to judge? I saw your date.”

Cheryl narrows her eyes. “He’s my coworker,” she bites, omitting a truth or two “and at least he doesn’t kill innocent people for money.”

 _Cheryl, come in_ , says a voice in her ear. She ignores it.

“Oh, like killing them for the government is better?,” Topaz questions sarcastically.

Cheryl rolls her eyes. “Whatever.” She looks down at Topaz’s outfit thoughtfully. She really is too pretty for a criminal mastermind, even prettier up close with her strong, lean body and her beautiful skin dark and smooth under the poor lightning of the basement. “I didn’t even know you were a lesbian. That really torpedoes my thesis.”

“....Your thesis?”                   

“Yeah,” Cheryl confirms. “I'm writing a term paper on you.”

“You're kidding me.”

“No, it's for _Capes and Capers_ : Gender Reconstruction and the Criminal Mastermind. It's a really popular class.”

Topaz’s face twists. “I hate how good that sounds, even though it’s about people like me.”

“It's hard because there's only anecdotal evidence about you,” Cheryl admits with a frustrated breath. “I mean, nobody's actually ever spoken to you.”

“Until now,” Topaz reminds her with a look and a smirk that could almost be described as _flirty_. Cheryl tries not to flush.

“Right,” Cheryl agrees, reluctantly. “Until now.”   

Her ear comm calls her to answer again but she ignores it way too easily, caught in this….thing with Topaz.

The girl in question stares at her for a moment. By this point, their guns are pretty much purely decorative. “I'm sorry. I didn't get your name.”

“Cheryl Blossom, D.E.B.S. Sector.”

“Antoinette “Toni” Topaz, but you knew that.” She smiles, and something in Cheryl shakes, like the hesitant start of a very big earthquake. “It's really nice to meet you.”

“You're still, you know, under arrest,” Cheryl reminds her, pushing down the feeling.                 

Topaz eyes her with amusement. “Am I?”

“Cheryl!”

That’s Josie’s voice, and a lot of footsteps. Back up has arrived.

Toni hears it, too, but she doesn’t leave. “Or you could just let me go.”                   

“I really couldn't,” Cheryl says, and she hates how unsure she sounds. Her hand tightens on her gun.

“Come on,” Toni cajoles. “Haven't you ever done anything you're not supposed to?”

Yeah, this.

“Cheryl, where are you?”

She turns to shout over her shoulder. “I'm over here!”

And when she turns back, Topaz is gone. Cheryl lets out a long stream of swear words in multiple languages just as Josie and the other D.E.B.S. arrive on the scene.

“Are you okay?,” Josie asks with a look of concern. “We couldn't reach you.”

“I’m fine,” Cheryl says. Her friends and classmates surround her briefly, checking her for injuries.

“Well, what happened?,” Veronica questions, already looking bored now that the danger is over.

“She was here,” Cheryl reveals, gesturing at the empty space in front of her. Stupid, dropping her guard even for a moment. Rookie mistake. “Toni Topaz was here.”

Josie stares at her. “That's impossible. If she was here, you'd be dead right now,” she reasons.

Betty walks around Cheryl and bends down, picking something up.

“You guys,” she says, holding her open palm up to the light. A precious stone sits there, small but beautiful under the poor light, shining golden brown.

Like Topaz’s eyes, Cheryl’s unhelpful mind supplies. 

“Do you know what that means?,” Josie asks. Cheryl pulls her eyes away from the stone to look at her. She looks a little awed, and a little frustrated at the same time. “You are the only one ever to fight Toni Topaz and live to tell about it,” she points out, huffing out a bitter laugh. “My mother is going to lose her shit.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hope you enjoyed! kudos and comments always welcome!


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “So, how long have you been a D.E.B.?,” Toni asks to break the ice. She knows of course, but Cheryl doesn’t need to know that.
> 
> Cheryl glares at her and doesn’t reply, then looks away towards the pool tables with a huff.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *shakes maracas* LETS GO LESBIANS

Jughead is so furious when Toni returns to the base, he doesn’t even notice the lovestruck smile on her face at first. 

“Unbelievable,” he fumes as she throws herself on her couch, Fangs barely avoiding her foot in his face. “You go on one date after months of radio silence and the entire intelligence community descends on your ass. Unbe-fucking-lievable.”

Toni doesn’t bother answering. She sighs, staring up at the ceiling. Fangs bends down over her and gives her a weird look. 

“What are you smiling about?,” he asks, confused.

“Smiling?,” Jughead questions, really looking at her now. “Did you get smashed over the head with something?”

Fangs grins suddenly. “Was the date going well up until the shooting?”

“Oh,” Jughead puffs up, smug. “I knew you and Penny would click.”

Toni snorts. “Oh, please, Penny was a fucking disaster, Jug. That woman is a psychopath and you know I don’t use that word lightly.”

“Then you met someone else!,” Fangs guesses, eyes dancing. 

Jughead rolls his eyes. “Yeah, in the middle of getting shot at.”

“Well yeah, actually,” Toni admits. “Does the name Cheryl Blossom mean anything to you?”

Both boys frown thoughtfully, but it’s Jughead that looks up, eyes narrowing. “You gotta be kidding me. She’s D.E.B.S! And not just your regular, run-of-the-mill D.E.B.S. She’s THE D.E.B.S. We’re talking perfect score, international intelligence community poster child, etc, etc.” He stretches to snatch his tablet from the coffee table and taps angrily through something until he finds what he’s looking for. He holds it up, and Toni makes  eye contact with a younger Cheryl in her D.E.B.S. uniform. 

“She looks so good in red,” Toni sighs. Jughead scowls and flings the tablet carelessly onto the couch. 

“You’re grounded,” he bites. Toni snorts. 

“You’re not my real dad,” she retorts, and reaches for the tablet, still on Cheryl’s decrypted identification page. She scans it quickly, noting the address of her dorm. Not too far from here.

“Did you even listen to me at all?,” Jughead demands. “She’s their pride and joy, literally their poster child!”

She smirks without raising her eyes from the tablet, too busy flicking through pictures. There isn’t much - a few action shots from training sessions, a couple of Cheryl apprehending criminals that don’t look very displeased to be manhandled by the red head, and the oldest is from her high school graduation where she looked just as beautiful, albeit her face less sharp and her body less defined and muscular. 

“Hello?,” Jughead continues, annoyed.

“Yeah, I heard you, Jug,” Toni says, rolling her eyes. “Their “poster child” doesn’t know it but she’s into me.” 

“You gotta be fucking kidding me.”

Unlike Jughead, Fangs looks delighted. “Would you say….back on the horse?”

Laughing, Toni grabs his chin and smacked a kiss on his big dumb forehead before putting the tablet down and getting up. She doesn’t bother changing, just grabs her jacket and her car keys.

“Where are you going?,” Jughead demands, getting up and following her as she makes her way to the door.

“Back.”

“She’s straight!,” Jughead informs her, in a last desperate attempt to get her to stay, but he must know it’s a futile effort because he doesn’t move to block her way. 

“Stay here, Jug. I’ll be back soon.”

“Toni-”

She doesn’t hear the rest, closing the door behind her. She grins in the empty hallway. 

“Alright, D.E.B.S. Show me what you got.”

* * *

 

Finding Cheryl’s dorm is laughably easy, the place not obviously guarded at all. Toni parks a safe distance away and looks at the building, contemplating. Marching right up to the door is practically asking to be arrested. She’s going to have to sneak through the yard and find Cheryl’s window, and tap on it or, if possible, climb up to it. She hopes Cheryl doesn’t have a roommate. She should have checked the records. 

Mind made up, she gets out of her car and locks it, before making her way to the yard. The gate is unlocked, probably forgotten in the rush to get back from shooting her (she rolls her eyes) and she pushes through it slowly. It makes no sounds as it swings back. 

She sticks close to the wall, avoiding the lights of the house from the tall windows. She doesn’t see Cheryl until she rounds the corner and looks up, and there,on the northeastern side of the building, Cheryl Blossom sits on her windowsill like a medieval princess waiting to be rescued. 

Toni nearly laughs out loud. Cheryl is no damsel in distress. She stands there like a creep for a minute, staring. Cheryl looks so soft without the makeup and the dress and the gun, more like a college student in her senior year waiting for her life to begin than a superspy. She has a book in her hand but she’s looking into the distance, eyes unseeing, distracted by some thought. 

Toni must make some kind of noise because before she can react and hide, Cheryl meets her eyes and she sharpens, body going tense.

She smiles before the redhead can think of reaching for a gun. “Hello again.”

Cheryl pauses with one leg inside her room. “What the fuck are you doing here? How did you find the dorm?”

Toni snorts and leans against the wall, staring diagonally up at Cheryl, looking more nonchalant than she feels. “I was thinking about what you said, you know, about your paper?”

Cheryl narrows her eyes down at her. “My thesis?”

“Yeah,” Toni confirms. “And I think it’s stupid for you to bust your ass looking for accurate information when we both know the Internet is full of lies about me. So, instead, you could just come straight to the source.” She points to herself. “Me.”

Cheryl lowers her other leg in her room, looking incredulously at Toni. “You?”

Toni bites her lip, smiling. “Come out with me. I’ll let you ask me anything.”

“Are you kidding?,” Cheryl scoffs. “I can’t go out with you.”

“Why not?”

“Literally so many reasons,” Cheryl says, shaking her head as if she can’t believe Toni is even suggesting it. 

A sound draws her attention to the gate, and she sighs when she sees Jughead being held at a very silent gunpoint by another D.E.B.S, the blonde, preppy one. 

“Jug, what are you doing here?”

Cheryl groans from above. “I can’t believe this. Betty, don’t shoot him, I’m coming down.”

Jug doesn’t reply but he glares at Toni until Cheryl emerges in an impressively short amount of time, in a short red leather skirt and jacket, black turtleneck, and black, high-heeled ankle boots, makeup perfect. Toni’s knees nearly give out. 

“Go inside, Betty, I can handle this.”

Betty cuts her eyes to Cheryl, incredulous. “I’m not leaving you alone with  _ them _ ,” she says, pointing at Jughead and then Toni with her gun. “They’re two of the most dangerous criminals alive.”

“Topaz just wants to talk,” Cheryl argues. “Mister My Chemical Romance is just a babysitter.”

“Hey!,” Jughead says, offended. Toni snickers. 

“You could both come out with us,” she offers, shrugging when three pairs of eyes make eye contact with her in surprise. “Safer that way and you could both play chaperone since apparently I’m not to be trusted with Cheryl.”

Cheryl rolls her eyes. “Fine.” She turns to Betty. “Go get dressed. You have two minutes.”

Betty gives her another incredulous look but goes obediently enough, muttering under her breath. 

Toni grins and goes to wait in her car.

* * *

The ride to the  _ White Wyrm  _ is tense and silent, and Cheryl and Betty nearly make a break for it five times till they reach the actual bar. 

“Look,” Toni reasons with them, as they go sit at a booth that empties the moment she and Jughead look that way. “You’re in Serpent territory now. You’re safer by our side than running away in the middle of the night. Go get us beers, Jug. On me.”

Jughead grabs the money with a disapproving frown but goes. Betty, looking awkward, follows him. Cheryl sits down in the middle of the booth with a disgusted grimace. Toni sits down beside her and smiles when the redhead doesn’t move away.

“So, how long have you been a D.E.B.?,” Toni asks to break the ice. She knows of course, but Cheryl doesn’t need to know that.

Cheryl glares at her and doesn’t reply, then looks away towards the pool tables with a huff.

“Sooner or later, you’re gonna have to talk to me, you know.”

“I don’t know what you expect to accomplish by bringing us here.”

Toni rolls her eyes. “To be fair, I didn’t really count on bringing Betty or Jughead along.” She nudges her shoulder against Cheryl’s when she doesn’t react to that. “Come on, lighten up. I bet you have plenty of questions you’re dying to ask me. Tell me about your thesis.”

At this, twin red spots appear high on Cheryl’s cheeks, visible even under the shitty lighting of the bar. “It’s stupid.”

“Well, try me.”

"I guess my central hypothesis is that as a woman operating in a male-dominated field, you felt the need to overcompensate by being exponentially more ruthless and diabolical than your established male counterparts.,” Cheryl explains in one rushed breath. 

Toni snorts. “I’m not more ruthless. It could be argued that the things I do, which looks ruthless and diabolical to the general public, from a male criminal they would be considered normal or even incredible feats of criminal prowess. But please, continue.”

Cheryl’s look on her face is more interested than pissed now. “And I also think that these psychological forces combine to create a kind of emotional void in which you're incapable of loving or being loved.”

Toni’s eyes narrow. Thank God Jughead is not here or he would be laughing himself hoarse. And  _ where is _ Jughead, anyway? She needs her beer. “See, that is not true!,” she argues. “I’m very open to love!”

Cheryl raises her eyebrows at her reaction. “Sorry, it’s just a hypothesis.”

Toni looks away from that piercing stare. “What do you know about love anyway?”

Cheryl snorts, bitter. “Nothing, I guess. I broke up with my boyfriend last night.”

“Sorry,” Toni offers, reluctantly, “that sucks.”

“I guess,” Cheryl muses. “I just...I think love should be irresistible, like a drug.” Toni slides in closer, mesmerized. “I think you shouldn’t be able to help yourself when you see them, you know?” Cheryl looks up at that, and something on Toni’s face make her look down, suddenly embarrassed. “God, I’m babbling, aren't I.”

“No, no,” Toni soothes, “I think you’re right.” She lays a hesitant hand on Cheryl’s thigh and she feels her tense underneath the skin of her palm. “You’d do anything for them, anything just to see them, no matter what the consequences.”

They stare at  each other for a long moment. “Right,” Cheryl agrees, her voice low. Their faces are really close now, inches away from touching, the air around them heavy. “No matter what.”

“And you didn’t have that with...whathisname.”

“No,” Cheryl says. Her eyes move down to her lips, and Toni’s stomach swoops, like she’s on the fastest roller coaster in the world. “He didn’t make me feel….”

“Hungry,” Toni supplies, her eyes drawn to blood-red lips. She closes the distance slowly.

And two beer bottles slam down onto the table, startling them apart. Jughead and Betty are wearing identical scowls on their faces. 

“We’re leaving, Cheryl,” Betty says, voice tight. 

Cheryl rolls her eyes, sitting up. “Go call us a car. I have a few questions of my own to ask.”

Betty’s scowl deepens. “Cheryl-”

“Who’s top of the class, Betty?,” Cheryl asks pointedly. “I know what I’m doing.”

Betty glares at her, but leaves. Jughead follows her after sending a significant look to Toni that she doesn’t know how to interpret.

The moment she can no longer see them, she turns to Cheryl again and nearly sighs. The redhead is closed off now that their moment has been ruined, face stony and arms crossed in front of her. 

“Those agents in Iceland?,” Cheryl asks. Toni laughs. She knows what she’s implying.

“Frostbite. Not my fault they weren’t prepared for the cold.”

“Those ATF guys in Peru?”

“I don’t know, Ebola or something.”

Cheryl stares at her, narrow-eyed and mistrustful. “You’re not what I expected.”

“Well, I think that’s a good thing,” Toni argues. She scrambles up as Cheryl moves out of the booth. “Wait, Cheryl. Will I see you again?”

Cheryl turns to her, hesitant. “You want to see me again?”

“Well, obviously,” Toni says. “I’m...really glad I met you,” she admits, grinning. “Despite the circumstances.”

Cheryl purses her lips, looks away. “I’m glad I met you, too,” she mutters, and Toni’s heart doubles its beats. “But I’m breaking like, eight federal statutes by being here, so…,” she gestures to the door.

“So?”

Cheryl frowns at Toni’s nonchalance. “I could get kicked out of the D.E.B.S. for this. I’m serious. This,” she points from herself to Toni, “can’t happen again. I’ve gotta go.” She turns on her heel and elbows her way through the crowd. Toni lets her.

* * *

“Okay,” Betty starts once they’re on their way home in an Uber, “what was that?”

“What was what?,” Cheryl asks, coolly, acting as if she can’t still feel Topaz’s hand on her thigh, a fiery imprint through her skirt. 

“She was totally going to kiss you, and you were totally about to let her!,” Betty accuses. She scoffs, shaking her head. “You’re into her!”

“I’m not!,” Chery denies with a hiss. “Are you out of your mind?”

“You violated a prime directive!,” Betty forges on. “And she’s a girl, which, I didn’t even know you were into and we’re cousins! You’re so busted.”

“If I violated the section codes, so did you,” Cheryl returns, glaring. “You exchanged phone numbers with Jughead.”

“That is not the same!,” Betty points out. “D.E.B.S. will not consort with a known enemy, under penalty of treason,” she recites.

“I was not  _ consorting _ ,” Cheryl scoffs.  “ _ You  _ got drunk and nearly got the chancellor of Bulgaria killed.”

Betty pales. “That wasn’t my fault!”

“Remember how I covered for you?,” Cheryl asks, sickly-sweet. “I never told anybody. If Josie ever found out-”

“I’d never get my stripes and graduate,” Betty concludes, face grim. “You’re blackmailing me.”

“I’m simply pointing out the facts,” Cheryl says. They finally reach home and step out of the car. Cheryl sighs at the sight of Josie waiting by the gate. The Uber alert must have woken her up.

“I can’t believe you!,” their team leader starts, furious. “Do you know what time it is? Where have you been?!”

“She was really upset,” Betty says, stepping in. “And we took a walk further than we realized, so we took an Uber back.” 

Cheryl schools her expression to something more downtrodden. “Yeah, I was really upset about Reggie and the failed op today, so I dragged my cousin out. Sorry to worry you.”

Josie’s scowl softens a bit. “I’m sorry, I forgot about that. Are you okay?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Cheryl says as they move inside. “I’m fine.”

“You know,” Josie muses, tugging down her pyjama shorts. “I was thinking about the op today.”

“Yeah? What about it?,” Cheryl asks, and tries not to look too eager for the answer. 

“I feel like Toni Topaz was mocking us with those signature gems.” She shakes her head, as if to clear it, her silk bonnet shining under the hall lights. “I don’t know. Just be careful, okay?”

“We’ll be careful. You should go back to bed. I have a feeling we’ll be busy tomorrow.”

“Yeah,” Josie agrees. “You should, too. Goodnight.”

“Goodnight,” Cheryl mutters as Josie moves back upstairs. She and Betty stare at each other and follow her up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> as always, kudos and feedback always welcome!


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I’m putting you in charge of this investigation.”
> 
> “What?,” Cheryl blurts out.
> 
> “What?,” Josie repeats.
> 
> “You are hereby promoted to squad captain,” McCoy forges on, ignoring their reactions.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> smaller update than the others but i reached a good stopping point so! also josie's mother is kinda really mean to josie here but i needed her to fill the role of faraway, closed-off director so. sorry about that. enjoy!

On Monday, the Academy is in chaos, everyone clamoring to speak to Cheryl, the only D.E.B.S to have faced Toni Topaz and lived to tell the tale. Cheryl pushes through the crowd by the sheer force of her glare, her very sharp heels, and the help of her squad. 

“Oh, my God, is it true? Did you fight Toni Topaz?”

“I heard you cut off her hand. Does she have her hand?”

She rolls her eyes at that. “Yes, Ethel, she still has her hand. God.”

Josie pushes through the crowd to walk in line with her. “Everyone is talking about it.”

“About what?,” Cheryl asks wryly. 

“How you met Toni  Topaz and lived to tell about it.”

Betty threads her arm through Cheryl’s on her other side. “Everyone’s calling you a hero, when really, you’re a slut,” she says, low enough for Josie not to hear.

“Shut up,” Cheryl mutters back, saccharine sweet.

“A gay slut, at that!,” Betty says, ignoring her.

Cheryl digs her nails in her cousin’s hand, and she wrenches it away, hissing in pain. 

“Better a gay slut than a failure,” she says coolly, even as her heart pounds. Is she gay? Is that what she felt when Toni smiled at her in the club? Touched her thigh? Looked at her like she could see everything that made Cheryl  _ Cheryl _ , even the uglier bits, and still liked what she saw?

Unbidden, her old friend from middle school, Heather, comes to her mind. She swallows back bile.

A harried freshman comes running up to her, breathless and nervous. Cheryl braces herself for another asinine question. 

“Mrs. McCoy wants to see you.”

Immediately, contemplative whispers break out in the hallway. Cheryl ignores it all and sweeps past the freshman to Weatherbee’s office. 

*

Mrs.McCoy is there, in the flesh, when Cheryl and her friends enter the office. She’s sitting in Weatherbee’s chair, the picture of power and grace, while Weatherbee stands behind her, sweaty and nervous.

She rises as they approach. Josie steps forward, with a hopeful look on her face. 

“Mother-”

McCoy stops her with a firm hand. “Not, now, Josie, my time is precious. Where is the girl? Blossom, Cheryl?”

Cheryl exchanges a look with Josie and steps forward while her friend melts to the back of the group, dejected. “That would be me, Mrs. McCoy.”

McCoy’s face breaks out into a perfect politician smile. “Excellent. Please, take a seat,” she offers, gesturing to the chair across from her. Cheryl takes it, crossing her legs. “First,...”

“Cheryl,” Cheryl says, with a totally fake smile of her own.

“Cheryl,” McCoy says with a nod that manages to still look dismissive. “Let me just say how delighted I am to meet you. When I heard that one of our own girls had engaged Toni Topaz and escaped unscathed, well….Fred at Central Intelligence nearly peed his pants, he was so jealous.” She laughs, and Weatherbee imitates her. It sounds painful. None of the girls laugh. 

“ _ This is so good,” _   Veronica says in whispered French, sounding deeply amused. 

“This stunt is really going to put the Academy on the map,” McCoy continues. 

“Stunt?,” Josie echoes. She goes promptly ignored.

“Hermione from Interpol called to extend her congratulations,” Weatherbee supplies eagerly. McCoy’s eyes glint in smug satisfaction at that. 

“I bet.” She turns back to Cheryl. “Now, Charlotte-”

“Cheryl,” Cheryl reminds her again, through gritted teeth. 

“Cheryl,” McCoy amends. “We’re going to need a description of the encounter, no detail spared.”

Cheryl narrows her eyes. “To what end?”

“To develop a profile, of course,” McCoy says, politician smile brittle now. Cheryl must be getting to her. Good. “Nobody has ever been this close to Toni Topaz before. For all intents and purposes, you are our leading expert.”

“I don’t think I’m an expert at all,” Cheryl disputes. 

“Oh, Charlie, you underestimate yourself. I took the liberty of accessing your private files.”

“Excuse me-”

“It's a Man's World,” McCoy begins, looking down at a file on Weatherbee’s desk. Cheryl barely resists the urge to snatch it from her hands. “Toni Topaz and the Psychology of Cultural Criminality.”

Cheryl closes her eyes for a moment.

“Toni Topaz is at once a narcissistic sociopath and a victimized girl-child eternally searching for the love of her father. Her crimes could be viewed as a desperate cry for help. The more she steals, the deeper her feeling of emptiness.”

“Wow,” Veronica says. 

“Pulling no punches, huh?,” Betty wonders. 

“Charlize-”

“Cheryl,” Cheryl practically spits. McCoy ignores her.

“I think, at some level, you identify with Toni Topaz. It’s so obvious all throughout your essay.” She pauses for a moment and stares at Cheryl with a glint in her eye that Cheryl doesn’t trust all. Then she nods to herself, decisive. “I’m putting you in charge of this investigation.”

“What?,” Cheryl blurts out.

“What?,” Josie repeats.

“You are hereby promoted to squad captain,” McCoy forges on, ignoring their reactions. 

“Mother-,” Josie starts, pushing forward.

“Is there a problem?,” McCoy wonders, eyes suddenly cold.

“Mother,  _ I’m  _ the squad captain.”

“Not for this investigation, you’re not. Charlene is more qualified than you. Therefore  _ she  _ is squad captain. There is a killer on the loose, Josie. This is no time for your ego.” She rises from her seat at the desk. “We’re not Girl Scouts. This is espionage! We have the chance to do something here!” She turns to look at Cheryl again. “Ready your troops and await further details. Do not let us down. Dismissed.”

Cheryl rises from her seat and they all head out. Josie pushes past her with hurried steps. 

“Josie!,” Cheryl calls, hurrying after her. “Josie, wait! I didn’t mean for this to happen! I didn’t even want to be captain!”

“That’s just it!,” Josie yells, stopping and turning around. Her voice echoes in the empty hallway. She’s not crying but her eyes are wet with unshed tears, the line of her mouth small and angry. “You never want it, but you always get it! Boys fall at your feet! The whole school kisses your ass when you so much as breathe! My own mother chooses you over me and makes you squad captain! You don’t even want to be a spy!”

Cheryl’s blood runs cold. “What are you talking about?”

Josie steps closer and juts out an accusing finger. “I found your sketchbooks, Cheryl. And I did some digging and found your application to that art school in Barcelona.”

Cheryl draws herself up to her full height. “You had no right-”

“That’s all you have to say to me?,” Josie wonders. “You constantly go behind my back with things like this. You had trouble with Reggie and you didn’t tell me. You’re talented at drawing and I didn’t even know until now. Not even your cousin knew, judging from her face.” Cheryl doesn’t turn around but she can imagine Betty’s face. She grimaces. “We’re supposed to be a team and yet you see yourself as outside of it already! Where did I go wrong?” Her voice breaks. “I just don’t understand why you have to take away the one thing I got going for me.”

“Josie,” Cheryl says, holding back tears of her own. “You’re my best friend. I never meant to behind your back with these things. But other things have priorities in our lives and you know that. Would you feel comfortable revealing your own passions to anyone? Your music? Your singing?”

Josie blanches. She probably didn’t expect Cheryl to know that. 

“I don’t need to go in your room,” Cheryl continues, voice soft. “The walls are pretty thin and the bathroom is right beside my room.”

Josie looks away, swallowing. “Whatever,” she croaks. “Just promise me one thing.”

“Anything,” Cheryl promises.

Josie meets her eyes again, steel and fire. “You catch that fucking bitch.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> as always, kudos and feedback are welcome! to those who have already commented thank you so much for being so sweet and encouraging! i might not reply to all, but i see them and appreciate them! you're the reason i keep writing! thank you <3


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jughead rubs a hand down his face. “This is stupid. You can’t just fake-rob a bank to get a girl to talk to you. This is unnecessarily dramatic.”
> 
> “Not to worry,” she soothes, pulling out a piece of paper. “I have a permit.”
> 
> He snatches it from her hand to read it, and scoffs. “This just says “I’m a lesbian”.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> another semi-short update but i wanted to post something and get myself going! from this point on the fic might deviate a little from the movie script. chapter 6 is gonna be full of lesbian getaway moments!!!
> 
> enjoy :*

“D.E.B.S spotted en route. ETA, two minutes,” Jughead informs in a bored tone that clearly implies how absolutely not on board with everything he is.

“Copy that,” Toni says, checking her lipstick in her phone camera. 

They’re under the bank, situated precisely under a trap that’s waiting to be sprung as soon as Cheryl steps on it. It’s a feat of modern criminal engineering, designed to every detail of Cheryl’s existence (height and weight and muscle mass mostly). The rest of the Serpents are scattered throughout the bank, posted as distractions and to keep the scared civilians in line.  

“D.E.B.S spotted en route,  _ two minutes _ ,” Jughead stresses, snatching her phone away. She snatches it back with a venomous glare and checks herself again. 

“Do I look okay?”

Jughead rubs a hand down his face. “This is stupid. You can’t just  _ fake-rob  _ a bank to get a girl to talk to you. This is unnecessarily dramatic.”

“Not to worry,” she soothes, pulling out a piece of paper. “I have a permit.”

He snatches it from her hand to read it, and scoffs. “This just says “I’m a lesbian”.”

“Yes,” Toni confirms. 

“Your lesbianism isn’t an excuse for these dramatics.” 

“No lesbian, no opinion.”

“That doesn’t even make-,” he cuts off with a strangled sound and presses a finger to his comm. She has long disabled hers. “They’re here. Along with some other agents. And may I remind you the cops are also outside?”

“You may, but that doesn’t mean I’ll listen,” Toni says calmly. “I’ll be fine, Jug. Go.”

He disappears with one final, disapproving sigh. After a whole five seconds of sitting in silence, she gets up and sneaks upstairs. She wants to see Cheryl’s face when she realizes this is all for her. 

She arrives upstairs just as Cheryl’s group do. There is no sign of her Serpents, cops, or other agents, which is ideal. Through her place behind the “closet” door (really, who would have thought a bank would have so many places leading into tunnels and basements?) she can see Cheryl at the front of the group, outfitted in all-black tactical gear, the rest of her group outfitted similarly. Toni sighs silently. She’s so hot.

“This is a trap,” the one with the curly hair is saying, looking around the empty, quiet space nervously. “No shadows, no bad guys, quiet enclosed space.” She looks off where the vault door lies waiting, eyes hard as flint. “Trap.”

Cheryl’s eyes narrow. “You think I can’t handle it?”

“No,” Curly bites. “I  _ know  _ you can’t handle it. I don’t care if you’re the perfect score.”

The blonde, Betty, snorts. “Perfect whore.”

“You wouldn’t know formation Alpha Gamma if it were tattooed on your forehead,” Cheryl accuses, pointing a finger at Betty. 

“Guys, this is stupid,” the brunette -what was her name again? Veronica, maybe?- declares. “We’re going to die.”

“No, we’re not,” Cheryl says, sounding sure as anything. She turns to Curly- wait. Josie, right? Right. “As your senior officer, I order you to secure the vault, soldier.”

Josie freezes, face coloured with disbelief. “You  _ order  _ me?”

Cheryl’s eyes are as cold as her voice. “Don’t make me repeat myself.”

“Fine,” Josie bites, and moves forward. Toni hurries down to where she came from again, praying that the trap -engineered by Jughead himself- will work. 

She can’t hear anything from here, but it doesn’t matter. Less than a minute later, Cheryl comes tumbling down, her landing cushioned by the...well, cushions, Toni had thoughtfully laid out beforehand. She looks bewildered for a whole two seconds before she gets her bearings and realizes Toni is there. She doesn’t look particularly surprised. 

“Sugar, we gotta stop meeting in basements,” Toni teases, from a respectable distance. Cheryl gets up and dusts herself off, face unreadable.

“You gotta release them.”

Toni blinks. “Who?”

“The hostages. And put back the money. This has gotten way out of hand.”

“Cheryl-”

“I can’t be here,” Cheryl stresses. “I can’t do this.” She points between her and Toni. “Do you understand?”

Toni deflates. “Yeah, yeah, I get it.”

“I like you, but, I don’t….I don’t  _ like  _ like you,” Cheryl adds, cringing at her own phrasing. Toni narrows her eyes.

“Don’t or can’t?,” Toni questions. “Is being a lesbian a crime in the big bad D.E.B.S rulebook?”

“No. But it’s a crime in my family,” Cheryl admits, blinking rapidly. “I’m already on thin ice as it is. I don’t want to be a spy forever.”

“Fine, whatever,” Toni says, now blinking rapidly too. Something must have gotten in her eye. “I just wanted…”

“I know,” Cheryl says, meeting her eyes again. She steps closer and lays a hesitant arm on Toni’s bicep, and Toni’s stomach flutters. “I’m sorry. It was kinda...sweet of you to go through all this trouble.”

“Yeah,” Toni scoffs. “The hostages are already freed by the way. I don’t care about them or the money.”

Cheryl just stares at her. “Oh.”

“Yeah.” Maybe Jughead was right. Maybe she should stop using her lesbianism as an excuse to be a dramatic idiot. 

“Can you release my friends now? They’re probably wondering where I am.”

“Oh, about that,” Toni starts, just as indecipherable yelling comes down from the ceiling. Cheryl glances up and then down at Toni suspiciously. 

“What did you do?”

“I might have arranged for them to be...squished. A tiny bit.”

“Toni!”

“Fine, fine,” Toni says, reaching for her tablet. “Booby -heh- trap deactivated. Happy?”

Cheryl glares at her without much heat. “That wasn’t funny.”

“It was kinda funny,” Toni protests. Cheryl shakes her head. 

“I gotta go-”

“Wait, wait!,” Toni pleads throwing her arms out. “I’ll go. I understand this whole thing isn’t gonna work out between us because I obviously misinterpreted...some things.” Cheryl’s mouth draws into a thin line. “But I just wanted to let you know that,” she lets her arms fall to her sides “that night at the bar? That was the most alive I’ve felt in a while.”

Cheryl stares at her for a moment, mouth falling  open, before she seems to gather herself. “I guess I’ll be seeing you. Around.” She walks away towards the staircase going up. Desperation claws its way up Toni’s throat.

“Come with me!”

Cheryl pauses but doesn’t turn around. 

“Come away with me,” Toni repeats, voice soft. “What do you have to lose?”

Slowly, Cheryl turns around to look at her. Her eyes are sad.  

“Everything.”

* * *

Toni, when working towards a purpose, is more swift and organized than Cheryl ever expected. Before she can come to regret her decision to follow her, she’s hustled into a car, then a private jet and then-

“Are we….are we still in America?” 

She’s standing at a dock, overlooking a small, beautiful lake, surrounded by trees, the air smelling of wet soil and pine. The area is silent save for small animals scurrying around, and the cool breeze ruffling Cheryl’s hair from where it’s coming out of her braid. 

Behind her, the safehouse -because that’s what it probably is- is rustic and beautiful, a house more appropriate for a postcard tucked into a tourist’s scrapbook than an internationally wanted criminal. It’s two stories high, with huge windows. She has yet to go inside.

She senses Toni stepping up behind her, close enough to touch, but the other girl simply answers her question. “No, actually. We’re in Canada. Banff, to be specific.”

Instead of fear for the distance between her and her team, excitement courses through her. She tries not to let it show. “I’ve never been this far north before.”

Toni nudges her with her shoulder as she takes a step up beside her. “It’s one of my favorite hideaways. I love the city but after a while a girl needs her peace and quiet. You know, a couple of face masks, beer-”

Cheryl grimaces before she can stop herself. Toni laughs, an absurdly pretty sound, low and musical. 

“Okay, no beer, apparently. Wine?”

“Red,” Cheryl confirms. “Or rose.” 

Toni’s smile turns smug. “Knew it. I’ll go bust my own cabinets. Do you wanna come inside?”

“Can I...can I stay out here for a moment?,” Cheryl asked. She just needed time to  _ think _ for once, without rushing to act before she is through, like she does as a D.E.B.S. “I need a moment to myself.”

Toni’s eyes soften. “Take as much time as you need.” Then her smile is back, small and secretive and full of promise. “We have all the time in the world.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> as always, kudos and feedback welcome! thank you for reading!


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Toni sits down slowly again, disbelief in her eyes. “You...wanna talk?”
> 
> “Yeah, actually, I do,” Cheryl says, lips thin. “This is difficult for me but you should know why I’ve been acting the way I’ve been acting.”
> 
> Toni shakes her head. “You don’t owe me an explanation.” 
> 
> “I kinda do,” Cheryl argues.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> god i am SO incredibly sorry for the unexpected hiatus. life has been utterly insane this semester and i've been struggling a lot mental health-wise so i kind of abandoned writing. im now on winter break tho so i intend to write more!
> 
> to those that came back to read the update, thank you so much for sticking by me. to any new readers, welcome and thank you for choosing my fic!
> 
> i have added an (internalised) homophobia tag for this chapter. cheryl gets kind of emotional. sorry about that. i promise the chapter ends on a happy note
> 
> kinda shorter than my other ones but i needed to get back into the groove some way lol!
> 
> happy reading!

The inside of the house is just as cosy as it looks from the outside. Cheryl, now cold and all thought-out, is grateful for the heat that seems to be trapped in the place. Her gear is not nearly thick enough for spring in Banff.

She picks her way inside hesitantly and pokes her head around the corner from the hall. Toni is sprawled out on the rug in front of the still unlit electric fireplace, two wine glasses and an expensive-looking bottle of rosé by her side. She sits up as Cheryl slowly walks into the living room and bypasses the white leather couch to sit on the floor, right across from her.

“Did you get cold?,” Toni wonders. “It gets cold as shit at night up here but the heating in this place is state-of-the-art so we got nothing to worry about.”

She’s rambling. It’s kinda cute and more than a little gratifying to realize this means she’s nervous. 

“Oh you should change, too,” Toni adds, looking at her tactical outfit. “That’s gotta be at least a little uncomfortable.” She makes to get up but Cheryl stops her with a hand on her knee.

“Stop,” Cheryl says softly. “Sit down for a minute.”

Toni sits down slowly again, disbelief in her eyes. “You...wanna talk?”

“Yeah, actually, I do,” Cheryl says, lips thin. “This is difficult for me but you should know why I’ve been acting the way I’ve been acting.”

Toni shakes her head. “You don’t owe me an explanation.” 

“I kinda do,” Cheryl argues. She nods to the wine and Toni fills their glasses obligingly. Their fingers touch as Toni passes her the glass, and electricity goes up Cheryl’s arm. 

“When I was in middle school, I had a best friend named Heather,” Cheryl begins, taking a sip of her wine. It’s very good. “We did everything together, you know. Regular sleepovers, did homework together, went to school together, etc.” 

“So, it took me awhile to realize that I wanted to kiss her.”

Realisation dawns on Toni’s face. Then sympathy. 

“I told her what I wanted in the middle of one of our other sleepovers,” Cheryl continues, swallowing past the lump in her throat. “And she kissed me.”

“That’s...that’s good right?,” Toni prompts when Cheryl doesn’t add anything else. “She didn’t react badly.”

“She didn’t,” Cheryl confirms, remembering Heather’s smile fondly. They were so young, so naive. “But my mother did.”

“Oh,” Toni says softly. 

“Yeah,” Cheryl says bitterly. “She freaked out to say the least, and I was whisked off to a Catholic boarding school, where I was probably supposed to pray the gay away. Instead I was recruited into the Academy the moment I got my SAT results back, along with Veronica.”

“Oh, you were classmates?”

“Yeah,” Cheryl says, smile sharp now. “We terrorised the nuns together, and she helped me realise liking girls wasn’t actually bad.”

“Is she a lesbian, too?”

“No, bi. But I’m still the only one that knows,” Cheryl reveals with a grimace. “Betty doesn’t know yet. Ronnie has no idea how to tell her because she’s in love and it’s serious and, to quote her “she’s not good with serious.” She snorts. “Anyway. I got into the Academy, and arrested my own father for drug charges and the murder of my brother. My mother resides in a neighboring jail, both in solitary confinement because they can’t be trusted around other people.”

Toni’s eyes widen. “Your father-”

“Was a drug kingpin and killed my brother to make it look like someone else did, yes,” Cheryl bites. She doesn’t like discussing that part of her past. 

“Blossom,” Toni muses. “Should have made the connection.”

“Yeah,” Cheryl says drily. “It’s half the reason I was recruited in the first place. They couldn’t pin him down before that, so it fell on me. My mother tried to contact me after that, to yell at me, hate me, the usual. So I arrested her, too. My grandmother is my only living family.”

“I’m the criminal here but god that’s fucked up, Cherry Bomb,” Toni says, eyes soft and sympathetic. Cheryl looks down into her glass.

“Despite Veronica’s reassurances I….I still suppressed who I was. In the Academy, it became part of my image. Cold, untouchable, the perfect score. I had this image of me and a powerful agent as a power couple but Reggie...did not fit the bill. He never could. And I think, despite how much I want to go against my family’s beliefs, I still…”

“Still what?,” Toni prompts, soft.

Cheryl swallows down the rest of her glass without pause. “I still hate myself, Toni,” she breathes out when she finishes, shoulders crumbling. She hates looking and feeling this weak, she hates-

“Shhh,” Toni soothes, putting their glasses down and gathering Cheryl in her arms. Cheryl stays tense for all of five seconds before she gives in, melting into Toni. “It’s okay to cry.”

Cry? Cheryl wipes at her cheeks. Oh, she is actually crying. Last time she cried was at her brother’s funeral, years ago. 

Once she starts, it seems like there’s no end to it, but Toni doesn’t stop holding her. She lets her cry it all out instead, only getting up to turn on the heat and the fireplace as night falls and the house gets cold. Then she’s back again, laying them down on the rug, Cheryl’s face tucked under her chin. 

Eventually, Cheryl calms down enough, and they keep talking until she can’t keep her eyes open anymore. They move into a bedroom, Toni beside her as Cheryl protests when she tries to move away. She’ll probably be embarrassed in the morning but right now, dead in the night, emotions high and wine in her system, she can’t really stomach the thought of going to sleep alone. 

So they lie down beside each other, bodies finding each other in the dark, and Cheryl lets herself sink into a deep sleep. 

* * *

Sunlight, bright and unforgiving, filters through the blinds and pierces Cheryl’s unconscious. She drags her eyes open slowly and stretches her arm to the side. She’s alone in the bed. The other side is cold.

She finally emerges from upstairs half an hour later, showered and dressed in the outfit that had thoughtfully been laid out for her by the foot of the bed, sweatpants and a dark green t-shirt that’s tight and a little short on her. She grimaces at herself. 

Toni turns around when she enters the kitchen, spatula in hand as she fries their eggs. She smiles. “Oh, you look so cute in my clothes.”

Cheryl tries to tamp down the blush in her cheeks with another grimace. “I look like a Christmas decoration,” she grumbles, pointing at her hair and then the shirt.  

Toni’s smile doesn’t diminish. She turns back to the frying back to poke at the eggs. “Well, you’re a cute Christmas decoration.” She points to a cabinet above her head on the right. “Grab a couple of plates for us, please.”

Cheryl complies, stretching around her to get to the cupboard, her borrowed shirt riding up as she does. When she lowers herself back down, Toni’s cheeks are suspiciously dark. Cheryl doesn’t call her out on it. She glances around the kitchen instead, looking at all the food covering the counters; two types of yogurt (vegan and non-vegan), french toast, pancakes, and now, as Toni lowers the temperature of the stovetop and take the pan away, eggs.

“Is that all...for us?”

Toni glances around. She looks flustered. “I might have gone….a little overboard,” she says, as she arranges the food on the dining table. “I didn’t know what you liked to eat in the morning.”

“I rarely have time for actual breakfast so this is practically a luxury for me,” Cheryl says with a smile. Toni manages to look even more flustered at that but a pleased smile spreads across her face. 

“Anything for you.”

It’s Cheryl’s turn to smile, flustered and pleased. Toni sits down across from her, eyes intense. 

“You look...better this morning. More relaxed.”

Cheryl looks away from those bright, too-knowing eyes and pulls the plate of french toast closer to her. “I guess I slept well. I didn’t dream. Or at least I don’t remember if I did.”

Toni nods. “That’s good.” She doesn’t push Cheryl to elaborate, for which she is very grateful. 

They dig in their food. The silence is heavy but not uncomfortable. The light streaming in for the windows makes Toni look like she’s glowing from the inside, her pink highlights like fire in her hair.

“I was thinking,” Toni starts later, as they’re finishing up their food.

“Sounds dangerous,” Cheryl teases. Toni kicks her foot.

“I was thinking,” she reiterates, “we could go hiking today. Banff is really beautiful all year round and the National Park has a lot of great trails.”

Cheryl raises an eyebrow. “Isn’t it busy this time of the year? Won’t you be recognized?”

Toni grins. “Aw, are you worried about me?”

It’s Cheryl’s turn to kick out this time. “We’re the subjects of a nation-wide and maybe even international manhunt. I’d like to stay off the news.”

Toni rolls her eyes and gets up to start gathering their plates, waving Cheryl away when she goes to follow her. “We’ll be fine. They owe me.”

“Who owes you?”

Toni grins. “Canadians.”

Cheryl blinks. “That just...invites more questions than answer them.”

“I like to be a mystery.” She hesitates, clearly another question on her mind, but she keeps her back to Cheryl as she cleans the plates to load them in the dishwasher.

“Ask what you want to ask,” Cheryl says. “I don’t bite.”

Toni glances back, a glint in her eye. “What if I want you to?”

Cheryl sputters, cheeks warming. “You-”

Toni laughs. “Oh God, chill. Kidding. No, I just wanted to suggest that if...you want to...we could also go to dinner tonight?” She looks back to the plates again. 

Cheryl stares at the lean line of her back, tilting her head. “As in, at a fancy restaurant? Because we have great luck with those?”

“Fair enough.” Toni finally turns around, leaning against the counter as the dishwasher whirs to life. “It’s true I could do with a little less shooting at me this time around. But yes, out for dinner. There’s this restaurant called “Sky Bistro” that has a great view and even greater alcohol. It’s immensely popular.”

“More people. Did you save Canadians from certain doom at some point in your life?”

Toni winks. “I’ll take that one to my grave.”

Cheryl looks down and away, her hair falling forward. “Not...any time soon, I hope.” She'd meant to make it sound coy but it comes out too quiet. Scared.

Toni is silent for a while. Then she steps forward, and with a gentle hand pushes Cheryl’s hair back. Cheryl raises her head, breathless at the touch and the intense look on Toni’s face.

“No, baby. I’ll be sticking around for a long time.”

It sounds like a promise.

**Author's Note:**

> huge shoutout to the scriptwriters for D.E.B.S. !!!!! couldn't have done this if y'all hadnt hit gigantic blunts while watching charlie's angels like a decade ago. thanks for adding lesbians
> 
> title taken from leo sayer's "you make me feel like dancing", from the charlie's angels movie soundtrack. yes i know im funny as hell


End file.
